Texas Textbook Standards Threaten to Re-Write Civil Rights History

May 19, 2010

On Wednesday, May 19th, NAACP President & CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous joined former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige in Austin, TX to testify against proposed changes to state's education curriculum that would significantly alter the way civil rights history is told in Texas schoolbooks.

The State board of education is scheduled to vote Friday on the proposed standards, which would downplay the role of several civil rights figures in U.S. history.

President Jealous testified that proposed changes would mean that students in Texas would have an incomplete view of our shared history. "We are concerned about quality not quotas. We are concerned about our children learning the whole truth, not half of it,"

Rod Paige, who served as Education Secretary under President George W. Bush, urged the board to delay Friday's vote until experts could weigh in.

"We have allowed ideology to drive and define the standards of our Texas curriculum and it has swung from liberal to conservative depending on the members of state board," Sec. Paige said. "What students are taught should not be the handmaiden of political ideology."